T.H.E. Show 2010


After just getting back from Vegas and spending 4 days listening, listening, and listening some more, one demo at the Flamingo kept coming to mind as a real standout. It was in the Jaton USA room. They were demo'ing a new pair of speakers they just come out with, not sure what the name was. I think it was the A30 or something, anyhow..... I went back on 3 different occassions to see if what I was hearing was just a coincedence or if these were the real deal. To me these speakers are incredible (for the price). the gentleman giving the audition said they retailed for $12,000. I know I know, they had better be good for $12k. They use Mundorf(!!!) components, with a very high quality cabinet (although kind of plain to look at). the AMT tweeter was incredible. put this in perspective, Jaton uses this companies drivers in a 12,000 speaker and you can go over to the Venetian and listen to Steve Hoffman sing the praises of Venture Audio speakers, who also use Mundorf AMT drivers, but the clincher is Venture Audio products cost in excess of $45,000 for their basically entry-level speaker and go upwards of $125,000!! On my last visit to the Jaton room another person was in there and made a comment to the demo guy that these were in the top 2-3 of all the sounds he had heard at both shows. That seemed to confirm my thoughts on these speakers. I just wanted to share this and see if anyone else heard these? These just might be the steal of the year for 2010 as far as speakers go.
605hifi
$12K speakers aren't the whole story here though... what was pushing them $50K? $10K?
Buconero117, its all subjective as you should know. Compared to what I was hearing from other rooms that had system retails of well over $50-70K and some hoovering at $100K, this system was very impressive at a retail of around $18K (speakers, amp, pre-amp). Maybe its not for you, I dont care, I was just pointing out one I thought was very very nice and a relative bargain. :)
I had an audition in Houston with these speakers. Jaton also has an amp they are selling that was pushing these speakers. Class A and a lot of watts. Anyway, the speakers are amazing and the amp was 5k, not 50k.
I was impressed by the distorted lower mid-range to bass and had to leave the room.
Conanb, you thought the lower mid-range to bass was distorted? were they playing it extremely loud? Distortion in that area really only comes into play at very high volumes. when I was in there it was never playing much higher than 90-95db I'd say and I never heard anything close to distortion. A "professional" reviewer was listening at the same time I had stopped and they took the guy giving the review aside and asked about a review sample. Maybe they missed the distortion too.
I found three speakers of note at THE Show. The Eficions in StillPoints suite, the Gradients in the Sonic Systems (Amarra) suite, and by Sunday, the AudioNotes. I was sorry I did not hear the ViV Laboratory speakers using a Feastrex driver in the Sibatech room. The Eficions are pretty normal and the Gradient decidedly not.
I spent time designing with Mundorfs AMT they have a large line available. But I thought the RAAL ribbons to be a bit better for our use.
i had a achance to review the jatpon opera amps, list at about 5k--300 watts class a. they are indeeded worthy performers at around 150 hz and below. however, the upper mid and treble sounded like typical solid state. overall the amp is a dr jekyll and mr. hyde. i had the amp for over one month aand returned it without rerviewing it.

although i was not at las vegas this year, i would be suprised that the when listening at levels exceeding 80 db, solid state-itis would not occur.

the problem wiyh most solid state amps is there brashness in the upper mids/treble range region.d my share.
The AP2300AX amp which we brought to THE Show Las Vegas is a new design which just start to sent out for review after RAMF 2009 show. I believe the unit you had been listening before isn't our final product. We did a lot of change after first design and the newest model should have better sounding performance from low to high of frequency. Of cause it can't be same as tube amp but we try very hard to make it close to the tube. By the way, we'll have couple reviews of AP2300AX from 2 different audio medias coming out soon.